Perfume Notes
Perfume notes describe smells, not a full ingredient list. Learn how a note differs from an accord, what top, heart and base mean, and how to use note lists.
Updated
Perfume notes are the recognizable smells used to describe a fragrance: rose, lemon, vanilla, leather or freshly cut grass, for example. A note tells you what a scent suggests, rather than revealing every material that creates it.
A perfumer can build one recognizable effect from several materials, and a single material can suggest several smells. This is why two fragrances with a rose note can smell very different: one may suggest fresh petals, another powder or jam.
Use notes as a vocabulary for comparing fragrances. They are useful clues to character, but a shared list does not establish that two perfumes are alike, and an omitted note does not prove you cannot smell that effect.
- Note
- A recognizable scent impression named in a description or noticed while smelling a fragrance.
- Ingredient
- An actual material used in the formula. The packaging ingredient list and the promotional note list serve different purposes.
- Accord
- A combination of materials that creates a particular overall effect, such as leather or a flower.
- Top notes
- The impressions that shape the opening.
- Heart notes
- The central character, also called middle notes.
- Base notes
- The lasting background, often more prominent later in wear. Top, heart and base can overlap.